@inproceedings {156, title = {Atacama: An Open FPGA-based Platform for Mixed-Criticality Communication in Multi-segmented Ethernet Networks}, booktitle = {Proc. of the 21st IEEE International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM)}, year = {2013}, month = {April}, pages = {121--128}, abstract = {

Ethernet is widely recognized as an attractive networking technology for modern distributed real-time systems. However, standard Ethernet components require specific modifications and hardware support to provide strict latency guarantees necessary for safety-critical applications. Although this is a well-stated fact, the design of hardware components for real-time communication remains mostly unexplored. This becomes evident from the few solutions reporting prototypes and experimental validation, which hinders the consolidation of Ethernet in real-world distributed applications. This paper presents Atacama, the first open-source framework based on reconfigurable hardware for mixed-criticality communication in multi-segmented Ethernet networks. Atacamauses specialized modules for time-triggered communication of real-time data, which seamlessly integrate with a standard infrastructure using regular best-effort traffic. Atacama enables low and highly predictable communication latency on multi-segmented 1Gbps networks, easy optimization of devices for specific application scenarios, and rapid prototyping of new protocol characteristics. Researchers can use the open-source design to verify our results and build upon the framework, which aims to accelerate the development, validation, and adoption of Ethernet-based solutions in real-time applications.

}, keywords = {real-time ethernet, real-time networking}, doi = {10.1109/FCCM.2013.54}, author = {Gonzalo Carvajal and Miguel Figueroa and Robert Trausmuth and Sebastian Fischmeister} } @inproceedings {152, title = {An Open Platform for Mixed-Criticality Real-time Ethernet}, booktitle = {Proc. of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE)}, year = {2013}, pages = {153-156}, address = {Grenoble, France}, abstract = {

For more than one decade, researchers have considered Ethernet as a natural replacement to legacy fieldbuses in modern distributed applications. However, Ethernet components require special modifications and hardware support to provide strict timing guarantees. In general, the high-cost of deploying hardware components limits the experimental validation of proposed solutions in real-world applications. Despite the vast literature, only a few solutions report real implementations, and they are all closed to the research community, hindering further development for constantly evolving applications.

This paper introduces Atacama, an on-going effort on deploying the first hardware-accelerated and open-source framework for mixed-criticality communication on multi-hop networks. Specialized modules exploit the principles of traditional fieldbus systems to coordinate communication tasks on real-time stations, and can be easily integrated to and coexist with COTS devices operating with best-effort traffic. Experimental characterization of implemented prototypes report minimal jitter on 1Gbps links, and show that real-time guarantees are resilient to injected best-effort traffic. The framework is available as an open-source project, enabling researchers to verify the results, explore, test, and deploy new networking solutions for modern distributed systems in real-world scenarios.

}, keywords = {real-time communication, real-time ethernet}, url = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2485288.2485326}, author = {Carvajal, Gonzalo and Fischmeister, Sebastian} }